Prayer to the Pacific
–Leslie Marmon Silko
I traveled to the oceandistant
from my southwest land of sandrock
to the moving blue waterBig as the myth of origin.
Pale
pale water in the yellow-white light ofsun floating west
to China
where ocean herself was born.
Clouds that blow across the sand are wet.
Squat in the wet sand and speak to the Ocean:
I return to you turquoise the red coral you sent us,
sister spirit of Earth.
Four round stones in my pocket I carry back the ocean
to suck and to taste.
Thirty thousand years ago
Indians came riding across the ocean
carried by giant sea turtles.Waves were high that day
great sea turtles waded slowly out
from the gray sundown sea.
Grandfather Turtle rolled in the sand four times
and disappeared
swimming into the sun.
And so from that time
immemorial,
as the old people say,
rain clouds drift from the west
gift from the ocean.
Green leaves in the wind
Wet earth on my feetswallowing raindrops
clear from China.
“big as the myth of origin”

Photo by elora manzo on Unsplash